Monday of Holy Week : Day
of the Moon
Emil Bock
The Three Years
There is a certain quiet place
which even to-day is shrouded in mystery. It is upon the road
which every morning and every evening of Holy Week was traversed
by Jesus and His disciples, whether leaving the city for Bethany
in the evening or returning to Jerusalem in the morning. Crossing
the summit of the Mount of Olives, coming from Jerusalem, and
slowly descending the other side towards the valley, where from
the depths of the Judean wilderness glitters the subearthly mirror
of the Dead Sea, one comes to a spot surrounded by high walls.
it lies half-way between the Mount of Olives and Bethany. Black
cypresses rise above the walls and point heavenward like solemn
beacons. In the time of Jesus there was a little settlement here,
Bethphage, "the House of Figs". This village was not
like other villages. A group of persons led there a life in common,
united by a special spiritual tie. The simple huts in which they
probably dwelt were surrounded by a hedge of fig trees which
gave the place its name. These fig trees, however, were not mere
bearers of fruit, they were sacred to the people who lived there,
visible symbols of their special training for the spirit. These
were people who sought to preserve in their circle a spiritual
Mystery of the past, the same Mystery which is hinted at in the
story of Nathanael. The group at Bethphage cultivated a condition
of supersensible sight which was called "sitting under the
Fig tree". It was attained by means of meditative exercises,
supported partly by special postures of the body.
It was from Bethphage that
in the early hours of Palm Sunday Jesus instructed Peter and
John to fetch the ass and her colt. For just as there were trees
there which were held as sacred, so too were these animals. The
asses kept there were no beasts of burden; they too, symbolized
a mystery. The memory still lived of the magician Baalam who
was called from Babylon to curse the Israelites and prevent them
from entering the Land of Promise. Baalam was pictured in the
Old Testament as riding on an ass. But it was known that the
phrase had a hidden meaning: it referred to a definite state
of soul. It was really a somnambulant withdrawal from consciousness
in which formerly the Babylonian magician began to speak. Baalam
spoke out of a kind of spiritual possession, not from His human
consciousness, and without His knowing how it came about the
magic curse which He was to utter became a blessing instead.
The sacred animals harboured at Bethphage indicate that the supersensible
vision cultivated there was somnambulistic and bound to the physical
body. Right into modern times the ass often appears in fairy
tales as the imaginative representative of the physical human
body.
The ass's colt upon which
Christ rode into the holy city on Palm Sunday belongs to the
realm of memories associated with Bethphage. But as He rode boldly
into the city on the sacred white beast, there was no repetition
of the Baalam condition of "riding on the ass"; it
was the crowd who, beholding Him, fell into the ecstatic withdrawal
from ordinary consciousness. It was as though a language of Baalam
gripped the people as they cried "Hosanna" to the one
who rode upon the ass's colt.
When the day drew towards
evening, Jesus went to Bethany with His disciples to rest, as
also on the following days. In the night the echo of popular
ecstasy with its "Hosannas" echoed in His soul. And
when next morning they passed by Bethphage on the way to Jerusalem,
neither He nor his disciples remained unchanged by what had taken
place. There was something deeply earnest in the bearing of the
Christ, something inexorable. Then comes the enigmatic approach
to the fig tree. The disciples wondered why Jesus should expect
to gather figs, when it is not their season. And they heard Him
speak the strangely harsh words: "Henceforward shall no
man eat of this fig tree for ever". Perhaps they dimly felt
in this moment that something greater lay in the words than just
a statement about the tree and its fruitfulness. But the scales
did not fall from their eyes.
And now in Jerusalem the disciples
pass a day with the Christ in which many dramatic scenes follow
each other. As their Master sets foot on the threshold of the
Temple precincts, chaos breaks out. Everywhere there is panic
and terror; tables are overturned, money rolls across the ground.
It is a reversal of the ecstatic jubilation of yesterday.
Then the night is again spent
at Bethany, and the next morning Jesus and His disciples come
by Bethphage at dawn. There the sight of the withered tree suddenly
confronts them, and the disciples ask Jesus to explain it to
them. It was no crude miracle, as though Jesus through his angry
word of power had robbed a creature of its existence. How could
He have destroyed a tree belonging to the people who had willingly
placed at His disposal the ass and the ass's colt! No, it was
a Spiritual act, denoting an important moment in the Mystery
of Holy Week.
The signal for the decisive
battle had already been given through the awakening of Lazarus.
But it was on Palm Sunday that the full being of the Christ was
revealed and it was this that stirred men's souls. But this moment
had also its simple human meaning. Jesus, as other devout people,
was going to the Temple for prayer and sacrifice in preparation
for the Passover. But a foreboding of great decision had seized
Him. Things could no longer go on painlessly, as in the past.
The Christ sees that mere enthusiasm is superficial and untrustworthy,
but as yet He is not constrained to repulse it. That He cannot
directly reprove the people is shown next day by a similar scene
before the Temple. This time it is children who cry out "Hosanna".
When His enemies ask maliciously, "Hearest thou what these
say?" He replies, "Yea, have ye never read the Scripture
'out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected
praise'?"
But now the night at Bethany
has come between and there is a certain contrast with the mood
of Palm Sunday. He approaches the fig tree at Bethphage and wishes
to show the disciples how little value should be attached to
the "Hosanna" of the previous day. All that it represented
was the last fruits of the old visionary clairvoyance, given
by nature, and bound to the body. The words He addresses to the
fig tree are, as it were, a challenge to the whole realm of ancient
ecstatic vision. Here a momentous decision is made in the history
of mankind. Jesus rejects the Hosannas of the people, and Himself
brings about the transition to their cry, "Crucify Him".
He has the courage Himself to summon the spiritual blindness
through which the people will fanatically demand His death. Humanity
must act out of a consciousness that leads to freedom, even if
it means tragedy; even if men in their spiritual blindness nail
Him on the cross.
When the fig tree of Bethphage
is seen again by the disciples on the morning of Tuesday, a wholesome
disenchantment has come over them. They see the withered tree,
just there on the spot which they have always treated with veneration.
They receive teaching from Jesus which serves as a prelude to
what they will hear from Him in the evening hour on the Mount
of Olives. Then they are led to realize that some day there will
be a new "sight" for mankind, and that "faith"
is to be the germ of this. Jesus says to His disciples: "If
ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible
unto you. Ye shall say unto this mountain 'Remove hence to yonder
place' and it shall remove". --- There will be no barrier
before you; the mountain of the sense world which bars your sight
will disappear. Through the rocky stone of earthly existence
you will see the true nature of things permeated by divine thought.
--- The power of faith will bring to maturity in the human heart
the eye of the new vision. The Sermon on the Mount speaks of
this: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God." But in between the old moon-vision, no longer serviceable,
and the new sunlike vision of the heart, there lies a time of
darkness, of blindness to the spirit. And in this stage of blindness
Christ will be nailed on the cross.
On that Monday in Holy Week
Christ rejects a temptation. Had He allied Himself with the ancient
clairvoyant forces, He might have found public recognition. Not
only would people have cried "Hosanna"; they would
have crowned Him King. But a final pronouncement is made: Christ
will form no link with the ancient forces. His sole aim is that
mankind should find the way to awakening and freedom. it is no
unloving curse that He utters on the fig trees of those who had
lent Him the ass and its colt. He acts purely from the nature
of His own being. He is the Sun, and when the Sun rises, the
Moon perforce grows pale. So the moon-forces of the old vision
fade away.
The Christ appears before
the Temple. Many hundreds of pilgrims have assembled, and around
the Temple buying and selling, trading and bargaining are being
carried on. In the Temple itself a feverish activity prevails;
sacrificial beasts are needed for the Festival, the Passover
lamb must be slaughtered. This is a source of business; for the
animals have to be bought before they are sacrificed. Old Annas,
the notorious miser of world history, knows how to make a profit.
He has already made a vast fortune from this market. He has been
the wirepuller in the political compromise with the Romans which
is the basis of the Temple business. The pilgrims must change
their local currency into the official currency which is valid
in the Temple. This is Roman currency. Thus the Temple comprises
also a Roman Exchange market. The Roman fiscal officers have
been admitted to the Temple, although they were representatives
of the Cult of Caesar, because it was hoped by this compromise
to keep them at least out of the Holy of Holies.
Now Christ comes on the scene.
He is coming to fulfil the custom of the Feast. But the fire
of His burning will has its effect. There is no need for Him
to say much. The people are immediately seized with panic. Terror-stricken,
they realize into what decadence they have fallen. Something
similar had taken place at the feast of the Passover, three years
before. At that time the terrifying effect came from the divine
nature of the Christ, despite the conscious restraint which was
still exercised by Jesus. But now the divinity is entirely transformed
into humanity; it has become intensity of will. He has the right
to tear down the mask of decadence of the Temple.
The Sun of Christ shines,
and the glimmer of the Moon must fade away on the moon-hill of
Mount Moriah. The spectres of the night flee from the sun. In
place of a magnificent Temple appears a simple room on Mount
Zion. There, in the Last Supper, the seed of a new ritual and
worship, a Sun-like Sacrament, will be sown. The moon religion
of antiquity will be superseded on the evening of Maundy Thursday,
when on the sun-hill of Mount Zion, Christ gives Bread and Wine
to His disciples.